Ahh that's the problem right there. They are action/adventure games, not actual RPGs. More GTA than Planescape.
thats not a problem for me, thats a revival. In fact, bethesda and bioware (throw borderlands in here too) games are the evolution of the RPG imo. They did to RPGs what Half Life did to FPS. I would like to throw fable in there because it kind of started the whole kick.
The RPG genre was/is not perfect and nearly all other games have a severe case of diabloitis. Same on rails crap with the typical "omg something is wrong complete 100 sidequests to find things and fix it", with the typical "your friend/mentor is actually the enemy" twist.
oh and if you don't complete the sidequests some random boss that your rails take you to will kill you, and there is almost nothing you can do skillwise because, well, you didn't do the side quests so f*** you. Don't get me wrong, those games were great, Doom II was also great. But there are bigger and better things and the new RPGs are it. The new Duke Nukem game kind of proves that... If you release the same crap over a decade later, its going to be crap.
EDIT: to add to that, everyone always looks back at old crap with rose colored glasses... but when you play the actual games they are nothing compared to the games today. When you actually boot it up and start playing you remember the ... oh yeah... this was wrong with it. Kind of like going back to an ex gf lol. Always seems better than it actually was.